Porchlight Business Book Awards 2020

Ghosting the News

Local Journalism and the Crisis of American Democracy

Columbia Global Reports

By: Margaret Sullivan
Narrated by: Amanda Carlin
Length: 2 hours 54 minutes

Ghosting the News tells the most troubling media story of our time: How democracy suffers when local news dies. Reporting on news-impoverished areas in the U.S. and around the world, America's premier media critic, Margaret Sullivan, charts the contours of the damage but also surveys some new efforts to keep local news alive -- from non-profit... Read more

Head, Hand, Heart

Why Intelligence Is Overrated, Manual Workers Matter, and Caregivers Deserve More Respect

By: David Goodhart
Narrated by: David Goodhart
Length: 11 hours 10 minutes

A Financial Times best book of 2020, an “utterly compelling” (The Sunday Times, London) argument from leading political analyst David Goodhart about the severely imbalanced distribution of status and work in western societies.

The coronavirus pandemic revealed what we ought to have already known: that nurses, caregivers, supermarket workers,... Read more

Monopolized

Life in the Age of Corporate Power

By: David Dayen
Narrated by: Stephen R. Thorne
Length: 13 hours 18 minutes

Over the last forty years our choices have narrowed, our opportunities have shrunk, and our lives have become governed by a handful of very large and very powerful corporations. Today, practically everything we buy, everywhere we shop, and every service we secure comes from a heavily concentrated market.



This is a world where four major banks... Read more

The Upswing

How America Came Together a Century Ago and How We Can Do It Again

By: Robert D. Putnam
Narrated by: Arthur Morey
Length: 12 hours 54 minutes

From the author of Bowling Alone and Our Kids, a “sweeping yet remarkably accessible” (The Wall Street Journal) analysis that “offers superb, often counterintuitive insights” (The New York Times) to demonstrate how we have gone from an individualistic “I” society to a more communitarian “We” society and then back again, and how we can learn from... Read more

Five Days

The Fiery Reckoning of an American City

By: Wes Moore & Erica L. Green
Narrated by: Wes Moore
Length: 7 hours 3 minutes

“An illuminating portrait of Baltimore in the aftermath of the April 2015 death of Freddie Gray . . . Readers will be enthralled by this propulsive account.”—Publishers Weekly

FINALIST FOR THE PORCHLIGHT BUSINESS BOOK AWARD • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY LIBRARY JOURNAL

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Other Wes... Read more

Girl Decoded

A Scientist's Quest to Reclaim Our Humanity by Bringing Emotional Intelligence to Technology

By: Rana el Kaliouby & Carol Colman
Narrated by: Rana el Kaliouby
Length: 11 hours 43 minutes

In a captivating memoir, an Egyptian American visionary and scientist provides an intimate view of her personal transformation as she follows her calling—to humanize our technology and how we connect with one another.

LONGLISTED FOR THE PORCHLIGHT BUSINESS BOOK AWARD • “A vivid coming-of-age story and a call to each of us to be more mindful and... Read more

Once a Warrior

How One Veteran Found a New Mission Closer to Home

By: Jake Wood
Narrated by: Jake Wood
Length: 8 hours 12 minutes

"The book that America needs right now."
--Tom Brokaw, journalist and author of The Greatest Generation

"Jake Wood offers one of the most soaring definitions of service I've ever seen."
--Maria Shriver, award-winning journalist and author of I've Been Thinking

From Marine sniper Jake Wood, a riveting memoir of leading over 100,000 veterans to a life... Read more

The Undocumented Americans

By: Karla Cornejo Villavicencio
Narrated by: Karla Cornejo Villavicencio
Length: 4 hours 53 minutes

NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST • One of the first undocumented immigrants to graduate from Harvard reveals the hidden lives of her fellow undocumented Americans in this deeply personal and groundbreaking portrait of a nation.

“Karla’s book sheds light on people’s personal experiences and allows their stories to be told and their voices to be... Read more

Accountable

The Rise of Citizen Capitalism

By: Michael O'Leary & Warren Valdmanis
Narrated by: Joe Knezevich
Length: 9 hours 4 minutes

“More than ever before, this is the book our economy needs.” – Dr. Rajiv Shah, president of the Rockefeller Foundation“Unwilling to settle for easy answers or superficial changes, O’Leary and Valdmanis push us all to ask more of our economic system.” – Senator Michael F. BennetThis provocative book takes us inside the fight to save capitalism... Read more

The Deficit Myth

Modern Monetary Theory and the Birth of the People's Economy

By: Stephanie Kelton
Narrated by: Stephanie Kelton
Length: 10 hours 52 minutes

“A straightforward, forward-thinking analysis of current economic policy and the United States' responsibility to fully fund and provide for equitable economic outcomes for everyone. This book answers the question, 'But how will we pay for IT?' Any ambitious proposal...inevitably sparks questions: how can we afford it? How can we pay for it?... Read more

The Double X Economy

The Epic Potential of Women's Empowerment

By: Linda Scott
Narrated by: Kitty Hendrix & Linda Scott
Length: 11 hours 38 minutes

This program includes an introduction read by the author

Winner of the 2020 Porchlight Business Book of the Year Award

One of The Guardian's Best Books of 2020. Finalist for the 2020 Royal Science Society Book Prize and the 2020 Porchlight Business Book Awards. Longlisted for the 2020 Financial Times & McKinsey Business Book of the Year

“Linda... Read more

The Hype Machine

How Social Media Disrupts Our Elections, Our Economy, and Our Health--and How We Must Adapt

By: Sinan Aral
Narrated by: Mike Chamberlain
Length: 14 hours 38 minutes

A landmark insider’s tour of how social media affects our decision-making and shapes our world in ways both useful and dangerous, with critical ideas on how to protect ourselves in the 2020 election and beyond
 
MIT professor Sinan Aral isn’t only one of the world’s leading experts on social media—he’s also an entrepreneur and investor, giving him... Read more

Reimagining Capitalism in a World on Fire

By: Rebecca Henderson
Narrated by: Rebecca Henderson & Lucinda Clare
Length: 10 hours 40 minutes

A renowned Harvard professor debunks prevailing orthodoxy with a new intellectual foundation and a practical pathway forward for a system that has lost its moral and ethical foundation.
Free market capitalism is one of humanity's greatest inventions and the greatest source of prosperity the world has ever seen. But this success has been costly.... Read more